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Seven Steps to "Sex-cess"
The battle for sexual integrity
demands constant vigilance. It's a wrestling match with
Satan, and any time you let your guard down, you get
body-slammed.
Our society so bombards us with sex.
With our male fascination for visual stimulation and our
often-adolescent mind-sets, this is very disconcerting.
It is easy to empathize with the early
church father, Origen, who made himself a eunuch in a desperate
step to achieve greater purity. But, God has also given us a
wonderful gift in being sexually alive with exciting potential
for deep, passionate intimacy.
The following are practical skills,
actually disciplines, men need to practice as they grow up into
sexual maturity and intimacy. "For God did not give us a
spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of
self-discipline" (2 Tim. 1:7, NIV).
1. Bring Sexual Secrets Into the
Light. Several years ago, I can remember having trouble keeping
my thought life disciplined around a certain woman who would
occasionally cross my path. There was no inappropriate
interaction, but I did not like the way she could ring my sexual
chimes without even trying.
I finally told a friend of mine about
her—the way I had coached others to confess their
secret struggles. How interesting that the next time I saw this
woman the sexual pull was gone.
Wow! Isn't it amazing how
Satan's system thrives in darkness and secrecy? It is
exciting to practice the discipline of bringing a secret into the
light of day and to actually experience its power
disappearing.
"Have nothing to do with the
fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is
shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But
everything exposed by the light becomes visible" (Eph.
5:11-13).
What a dynamic concept God created
with His emphasis on confession and walking in the light. An
important part of this discipline is seeking out appropriate
confessors, groups and accountability buddies.
Wives cannot be in that role alone. We
need male buddies to help us bring our secrets into the
light.
2. Practice Pre-Zone Choices. In
sexual addiction, there is an interesting concept of being in
"the zone." This is when sexual temptation and
lustful desire have headed down the slippery slope and already
given birth to sinfully following through on a behavior.
It would take a team of wild horses to
stop you once you reach the acting-out zone. "But each
one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away
and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to
sin" (James 1:14-15).
Carl stated the car had a mind of its
own and turned into the parking lot of the convenience store that
sells dirty magazines. Of course the car couldn't be
stopped, Carl was already in the zone by the time he got near the
store. The time for decisions was earlier.
That morning he could have called a
friend for help. He could have called his wife before he left
work. But he failed to make any of these pre-zone choices to
preserve his sexual integrity.
Christian men often get angry with God
and complain that He allowed sexual temptation that they
couldn't stand up under (see 1 Cor. 10:13). No, we simply
did not make a series of healthy choices until it was too
late.
God didn't fail us. We failed
to take the first choices He gave to keep us from sinning. The
quicker you begin making decisions about sexual temptation, the
more God can intervene.
3. Discipline Fantasies and Sexual
Surges. Men usually think they are more highly sexed than their
wives are. It is true that most men think about sex more and are
more visually specific as they zoom in on female bodies. But I
don't think it is higher testosterone or our sexual
natures that make us more sexually aroused; it is our poor
self-discipline of the environmental sexual cues.
Controlling sexual cues is an
interesting discipline. It involves several ways of applying the
wisdom of "take captive every thought" (2 Cor.
10:5) and "the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes
are good, your whole body will be full of
light'" (Matt. 6:22).
Practicing the following really
helps:
Don't close your eyes or give
free rent. When seeing or hearing a sexual cue (for example, a
guy in the locker room talking about a sexually charged movie he
saw), keep from closing your eyes and visualizing or fantasizing
about the sexual image.
You can't always avoid the
sexual stimulation, but when a thought or visual cue comes into
your mind, you can choose not to give it lodging rent-free. God
gives us the ability to switch topics in our minds.
Direct your vision and practice the
"one-second" rule. Try to discipline your
vision to look at women's faces or see their bodies in a
general way—don't do the elevator routine as
your eyes roam up and down, stopping at favorite floors.
When seeing specific visual cues (for
example, a tight sweater), do not allow your gaze to linger and
further sexualize the cue. Move your eyes and mind on.
Do not run with cues. Noticing the
cute runner may be natural. Following up that cue by almost
driving off the road trying to check her out in the rearview
mirror is a step into dangerous territory.
Now you're thinking, Wow, what
a build! You are off and running in your mind as you take one cue
and build it into seven. Choose to stop with one cue.
4. Work Inside Out. Do you sometimes
believe God doesn't hold up His part of the bargain with
changing our sexual behaviors? You try so desperately to uphold
the right sexual behavior and yet always seem to slip.
Quit trying to work outside in.
Instead, start with God working His deeper changes in your heart
and creating true freedom and redemption (see chart).
Real sexual integrity is not about
what you aren't doing; it is about what you are doing.
You may have stopped masturbation but haven't dealt with
the deeper heart lust issues. Go deeper than the behavior.
How is masturbation affecting you and
your relationships? Are you lusting, lazy, avoiding intimacy,
feeding an addiction? Go deep into God's character and
the heart of issues, and work inside out.
We will make better choices as God
helps us become appalled at how shallow, ugly, stupid and
tragically destructive sexual sins are. Psalm 97:10 says,
"Let those who love the Lord hate evil."
When we lust after another woman or
are tempted to have an affair, we can better understand the
damage we're causing by imagining instead an evil we
could never see ourselves doing—such as taking a tire
iron from our cars and bashing our wives with it.
This may seem over-the-top. But we
each need to recognize just how cruel and mean God sees our
sinful fantasies and actions.
5. Meet Nonsexual Needs Nonsexually. I
recently asked my men's group: "It's
Friday afternoon, and you got off work early. The wife and kids
are not home, and you have time to relax and enjoy. How many of
you might think of something sexual as a part of that
recreation?"
All of them admitted that it would
cross their minds.
We brainstormed on what were they
really desiring at the end of an exhausting week: diversion, a
chance to let down and play, and maybe some adventure and
excitement. Sex can accomplish this, but we started listing
alternatives: wandering around Home Depot, playing video games,
biking or shooting hoops.
Men long for connection, meaningful
physical touch and consolation when stressed. False sexual
intimacy can seem helpful, but this shallow substitute can never
become the real thing. One of my friends, Mark Laaser, keeps
saying that the antidote to lust is good male friendships.
Letting God help us meet our needs,
sexual and nonsexual, wisely and appropriately, is a critical
discipline for sexual integrity.
We often think that we need sex when
we are really searching for something else.
6. Quit Window-Shopping. We can
summarize God's plan for our sexuality quite simply:
Every Adam courageously waits for and erotically connects only
with his Eve—all other women are his sisters. 1 Timothy
5:2 tells us to treat "older women as mothers, and
younger women as sisters, with absolute purity."
A female client of mine recently asked
why Christian men do so much window-shopping of women. She
stated: "If they are godly men, why are they sizing up
women for mental or sexual relationships? Aren't we
sisters?" I couldn't agree more.
I fondly think of a pastor friend of
mine, who upon seeing an attractive woman says to himself,
"Thank you, Lord, for this woman." And then he
adds: "But this isn't my woman, Lord. Thank you
for mine."
7. Practice 3-D Sexuality. God teaches
us that sexuality is three-dimensional. It can never be just a
body thing (see 1 Cor. 6:13-19) but naturally involves our soul
and spirit. When you are at a mall and notice an attractive
woman, look at her face and notice if she is tired.
Observe the packages she is carrying
and think, I bet she's a great mom. Make the woman a
person and give her a life.
Body: Look at less common but very
feminine features such as hands, smile and ways of gesturing. Let
her body communicate her heart, not just her sexuality.
Soul: Honor the needs of her mind and
heart for respect and affirmation, not lust. She is very precious
to God. Would you want someone looking at your daughter the way
you are looking at her?
Spirit: Remember that she wants
someone special in her life to connect with—and this is
not you!
One of my clients, after seeing a
great body and struggling with lust, starts praying for that
woman that she will truly know Christ. Giving her a spirit gets
him back on track.
Godly disciplines are not easy or
natural. Keep practicing because it's a no-brainer
choice. Do we want pain, guilt and failed intimacy, or do we want
the fruit of the Spirit with love, joy and peace?
"No discipline seems pleasant
at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a
harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been
trained by it" (Heb. 12:11). It's time to
vigilantly protect your sexual integrity.
By Doug Rosenau, a marriage and sex
therapist and author of
A Celebration of Sex and co-founder of Sexual Wholeness (
sexualwholeness.com), which teaches biblical
sexuality.
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